Pokemon Diamond & Pearl (Prima Official Game Guide)

Before you go on, I just want to say that much like the Nintendo Power Guide, Prima's guide doesn't have a proper Pokedex. It's got a list of all the Pokemon you can catch, but no full Pokedex full of the moves lists, stats, evolution, etc. This has come to be expected of Pokemon guides, but keep in mind that if you want a guide for the Pokedex, you won't get it here and you won't get it from Nintendo Power's Guide either.

Third party guides are always something of a debate. On one hand, they just look better than some of the first party guides and often provide information that isn't normally found within a first party guides pages. On the other hand, they're third party. It's not straight from the pros. Prima is pretty well known for pumping out fairly good Pokemon guides (save for their Fire Red/Leaf Green guide), and I expected this to be a brilliant guide. It's not bad, but for a Pokemon guide as big and thick as this, you expected they'd cover so much more of...Read more

It does a decent job with telling where stuff is without spoiling everything.

But really could use a more completed Pokedex section. Its nice to know the name and numbers of the Pokemon. Its more helpful if you were actually told about what moves and what level they learn them. It also would have been terribly helpful to learn when they evolved and under what circumstances.

Do yourself a favor and get the guide Nintendo did for this game. It may not have the flashy graphics and flare of the Prima guide, but at least it gives you a move list and evolution status.

Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are amazing games, with as much or more to do after beating the "Elite Four" as getting to that climax point. This book doesn't begin to cover the vast scope of these games. The good points about the guide book include maps, and key events in each area leading to the Elite Four (the first half of the game). There is no information whatsoever about the second half of the game.

There are many, many bad points. Errata are common. The guide is poorly organized - I found myself lost over and over, with the need to go online to find out where to go next. The guide gives only some hints of what to do next in each area, and at that, the user needs to flip back and forth between different sections of the book every few minutes. One of the worst aspects of the book includes a total lack of information about the more than 300 Pokemon that become available to the player after beating the Elite Four. The guide doesn't list these Pokemon anywhere, so...Read more